Unable to create swap file during boot from CD

**Ham13** · 09-08-2006, 12:43 AM

Running Knoppix Live CD on Packard Bell 200 MHz Pentiun with 65M memory. Knoppix 3.8 - 2.7.11 kernel boots OK until requested to make swap file. Clicking on OK does not create the file it only brings me back to the "Create Swap File screen". Alt + O or Cancel are the only options that exit this routine. No swap file is created. Booting then continues. But then fails when loading KDE due to limited memory. How do I create the swap file? Why do I keep going back to that particular screen? A check of the Windows/DOS environment shows that the swap file was not created.

Thanks

**Harry Kuhman** · 09-08-2006, 01:01 AM

What Windows OS are you running? If it's XP with NFTS partitions then I don't believe Knoppix will be able to creator write to a swap file, although it would seem extrenely unlikely that anyone with a 200 meg system with 64 meg could run xp. Otherwise I can't account for the problem, Knoppix made the swap file as expected when I tried it. But it's been years since I actually tried Knoppix on anything that small, maybe the feature has become broken.

**Ham13** · 09-08-2006, 02:51 PM

The OS in Windows 95. The swap file routine appears to be a DOS like application. I have two choices to click on. One is OK the other is Cancel. If I click on OK I just come right back to the swap file creation screen. I can not click on anything else. If I use a hot key (ALT + O) I exit the routine and booting continues but no swap file is created.

**Ham13** · 09-08-2006, 05:42 PM

This time I loaded a later version of Knoppix. Here I got this error message when creating the swap file "No partition available for swap file". I have the bios set to boot from the CD then the floppy then the hard disk. When I try to boot from the CD alone this message appears "Isolonux: failed to locate CD-ROM device load spec packet failed... Boot failed. See //syslinux.ztpr.com/sbm

Using Smart Boot Manager to boot the CD-ROM Knoppix loads with only the error on creation of the swap file. Could the swap file problem be related to Smart Boot Manager?

**Harry Kuhman** · 09-08-2006, 06:48 PM

Originally Posted by Ham13

... Here I got this error message when creating the swap file "No partition available for swap file". ...Using Smart Boot Manager to boot the CD-ROM Knoppix loads with only the error on creation of the swap file. Could the swap file problem be related to Smart Boot Manager?

I don't see how it can be sbm related.

There should basically be two options: (1) If you have (or if you create) a Linux Swap partition on your drive then Knoppix can and will use it when it boots and finds it. This isn't a good option for most people because they usually already have all of the disk space taken up by Windows partitions. And (2) If you don't have a swap partition you can let Knoppix create a swap file on a FAT partition for you when it complains of too little space and offers to do this for you. This space, in a file on the FAT partition, is used for swap space just like a swap partition. I am not clear on why this is not working for you, it worked for me. Is there enough space on you disk to make a swap file? You might want to try defragging your hard disk partitions and trying again.

If you still can't get Knoppix t0o make a swap file for you, you might want to try to manually create one. But I consider this risky and I think you should be able to get Knoppix to do it automatically if there is space for a swap file. If you want to do it manually, see the last entry in the Rescue Faq.

If your system has space and an interface available for an additional hard drive and you have one that you can add that your old hardware supports (this box likely has hardware and/or bios limitations that keep you from running modern large drives), you could add it and create a swap partition on it. I don't know your status there and I certainly would not spend any money at all on this, but if you have a spare old drive it would get you past this.

Understand that with that old of a system and with a swap file that when you do get it working your system will be expending a lot of resources swapping stuff too and from the hard disk and will be very slow. You might be putting a lot of work into what will become a disapointment if you don't expect that. As I say, I have not run Knoppix on a 64 meg system fro quite some time and this is the reason,. but the swap file feature always worked for me when I did.

**Harry Kuhman** · 09-08-2006, 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by Ham13

This time I loaded a later version of Knoppix.....

Also, doing a Google search I find reports that Knoppix 5.0.1 is believed to be buggy in this area. That would not surprise me, it's bugging in many areas. The best suggestion is to stick with 3.8 or some other version before Knoppix 5.x to make the swap file. Once you have the file created then you should be able to run Knoppix 5.0.1 and use that swap file if you wish.

**Ham13** · 09-09-2006, 02:22 AM

Harry, Thnks for all your comments. Tried version 3.8.1. Same result. Have a 2 gig drive with about 98 MB free. How much disk space do I need to set up a swap file? Maybe I'm not entering the proper data. It seems all I can do is click on OK when asked to create the swap file. Is there any other data I should be entering and if so haow do I do it? I cannot get the cursor into any other field than OK or Cancel.

I do not want to load it on my larger Win 2000 machine until I'm sure it will not cause problems there. I know that Knoppix has problems writing to other than fat32 file systems. If it is buggy I cannot risk my work PC.

**Harry Kuhman** · 09-09-2006, 03:21 AM

Originally Posted by Ham13

...How much disk space do I need to set up a swap file?...

I do not want to load it on my larger Win 2000 machine until I'm sure it will not cause problems there. I know that Knoppix has problems writing to other than fat32 file systems. If it is buggy I cannot risk my work PC.

I honestly don't remember how large the swap file is created; I would think that 98 meg would be OK but it may be cutting it close. More important may be that it be contigious, I'm not sure of that but it seems likely. Defragging may be helpful; if you can afford to free up 40 or 50 more meg (or obviously more) before you do, all the better and the defrag will go faster. If you do and it works, please post back how big of a swap file was created.

And again, don't expect the system to run well when thrashing the hard disk this way. About all I can say for Knoppix on a P166 and 64 megs of memory and a swap file is that it eventually booted and I was able to do things like start a browser and surf the web, but there is absolutely no way that I can justify the performance as acceptable.

I consider Knoppix perfectly safe to run on a 2000 or XP system, just as long as you do not change write permissions and tell it to write to an NTFS partition. On a few rare cases some users have had to completely power down their systems after running Knoppix, not just do a warm reboot, but that generally is the worst of it. Of course, there are people who may do awful things and then not want to admit it even to themselves, and since there's always a chance that Windows may screw up it's partitions (It's got mine twice when I was not running KNoppix), there is also the chance that someone might experience that problem just before or just after running Knoppix and unjustly blame Knoppix, but I know of no confirmed cases of Knoppix unexpectedly harming Windows on a system (which is more than I can say for Windows and their approach to Linux). Since your 2000 system presumably has enough memory to not need a swap file I don't think you will have any problem. Of course, you can't sue me if something awful happens and I always advise people to have good backups.

If you really want to play it safe, power down completely and unplug your hard drives. Knoppix doesn't need them. Plug them back in when you are ready to run Windows again. It's ugly and unnecessary, but it may give you an extra feeling of safety.

**Ham13** · 09-10-2006, 03:55 PM

On a Windows 2000 system how do I tell Knoppix to use an ntfs partition when writing to the disk?

On the swap file issue I think it might be related to the file size. Knppoix wants to create a 2012 MB file. The avalible space is 1 Gig. I can not change the size of the file in the creation routine. I can not get into that field only OK and cancel.

I do not see any other choice but to try to create the file manually as the swap file routine can not accept a new file size.

If I create the file manually I think I shold be logged in as root. The Live CD shows a user of Knoppx0...$ not root. How can I change user to root? I'm assuming the name of the swap file shoud be knoppix.swp and the /etc/fstab must be edited to include the new file. I will try the sets outlined in the FAQ mentioned above. Last effot to get this running.

**Capricorny** · 09-10-2006, 10:59 PM

If you want to run KDE in 65MB RAM, you should probably have at least 256MB swap, in a contiguous file. Best is to prepare for that in Windows, deleting files and defragmenting. Then you can boot Knoppix with cheatcode knoppix 2, to avoid the attempt at starting KDE. Then become root (type su), mount the harddisk (probably something like mount /media/hda1) enter the Windows root directory (cd /media/hda1) and create a swap file (eg by dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1M count=256) then preparing and using it (mkswap swapfile ; swapon swapfile) before starting KDE with startx. It may also be possible to use the Windows swapfile (nowadays it's often called pagefile.sys, don't know about Win95) I can't find swap specification among the cheatcodes: http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Cheat_Codes, but if you save your configuration, it may be mounted automatically, or you can modify the knoppix.sh script that is among the saved conf. files.

I would have tried fluxbox or icewm, they use far less resources than KDE, try startx /usr/bin/fluxbox after booting with knoppix 2.